MARTINEZ — In 2014, as he awaited his second trial on murder charges, Family Affiliated Irish Mafia co-founder Coby Phillips tried to send a message to government “rats,” a Contra Costa prosecutor told jurors Thursday.

His plan, according to deputy district attorney Tom Kensok, was to have a fellow inmate strangle the defense attorney for Sergio Vega-Robles, a former Mexican cartel drug dealer, who agreed to become a state’s witness and testify against Phillips.

Phillips, Kensok said, wanted to “send a message to these attorneys who are orchestrating deals for these rats,” since Vega-Robles himself was out of reach in a government witness relocation program.

“The gang can’t tolerate that,” Kensok said.

Kensok’s statement, and defense attorney Dan Horowitz’s lengthy rebuttal, mark the end of a complex murder and conspiracy case that has spanned several weeks. Prosecutors have charged Phillips — who co-founded an Irish-American street gang known as FAIM in the 1990s — with murdering a drug dealer in 2004, conspiring to kill a defense attorney, possessing shanks in jail, and trying to dissuade another prosecution witness from testifying.

The prosecution’s case in the 2004 killing hinges on former associates of Phillips, many of them admitted criminals or drug dealers. Horowitz has argued that the prosecution’s main witnesses have clear motives to lie; Vega-Robles, for instance, agreed to testify to secure legal immigration status, Horowitz said.

“Just like drug addicts lie to their family, these people lie also,” he said.

A lot is hanging on these next few days; if Phillips is acquitted, or if the jury hangs like it did in 2013, he will likely be freed from custody for the first time in a decade. If he is found guilty on any of the charges besides possessing jail weapons, he could be sentenced to life.

The man Phillips is accused of shooting to death in 2004, an Aryan Brotherhood dealer named Darryl Grockett, was reportedly plotting to rob Vega-Robles and his brother, who was supplying Phillips with methamphetamine from Mexico.

“Killing Grockett had to do with protecting the drug ring,” Kensok said.

Horowitz doesn’t deny his client’s involvement in the drug industry, but he said Phillips had no motive, nor opportunity, to kill Vega-Robles’ defense attorney. And he sharply denied that Phillips had anything to do with Grockett’s death, saying that the two were friends.

“Coby didn’t get to where he is in his world by being a hot head,” Horowitz told jurors. “That doesn’t mean you have to endorse FAIM… but (Phillips) deals with conflict in a rational manner.”

Kensok’s portrayal of Phillips was a bit different. He said that Phillips was “manipulating” Jason Soletti, a fellow jail inmate in 2014 who has been convicted of numerous violent acts while in custody. Soletti, by coincidence, was being represented by the same attorney as Vega-Robles.

Kensok displayed a handwritten jail note, allegedly written by Phillips to another inmate, that references Soletti. One portion reads, “after he wacks (sic) his lawyer for me, his (expletive) is going to be safekeeper at SQ (San Quentin).”

But Horowitz argued that the reference was actually Phillips’ citing an example of how Soletti was living in delusion, and that the alleged murder plot never existed. It also says that Soletti “really believes what he says,” and ends with its author expressing shock that the courts found Soletti competent to stand trial.

Nate Gartrell covers crime, politics, and corruption in Contra Costa County. He joined the Bay Area News Group in 2014. Outside of journalism, he doesn't do much. He aspires to visit all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums. Reach him at 925-779-7174.

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